An Arms Trade Convention The striking pronouncement of the two
Archbishops and other leaders of the Christian Churches on the subject of the manufacture of and trade in arms has been evoked primarily by the appointment of the Royal Commission on that subject, but it appears opportunely just at the moment when the Disarmament Conference's Committee on the same problem has approved, with several reservations, its report to the full Conference. The drastic national control of armaments factories, both State and private, has been agreed on, together with considerable internatimal publicity, at Geneva, for the activities of such factories. The chief point of divergence, on which the British Government has been considerably criticized, is the question of whether some organ of international control and investigation into the activities of national factories should be set up. The British delegates' argument was that a Permanent Disarmament Commission, with such right of local investigation into national armaments generally, is to be approved as part and parcel of a general Disarmament Treaty, but that so extensive an intrusion into national affairs is not justified in the limited field of armaments manufacture and traffic alone. There is a good deal to be said for the contention, but it is sufficient answer to it to say that if the United States make such a proposal and most other States take no exception to it, Great Britain need not head the opposition. * *
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